Casual wedding invitations and the insanity of writing out "Two Thousand and Fifteen"

When I got engaged, I never thought that figuring out which words to use on our invitation would be harder than figuring out which invitations to use.

Choosing the invite was almost instinctual, whereas figuring out how to word the damn thing became a freaking internal struggle.

It became my tomboy-ish, anti-formal, easy-going ways fighting against the years of Cotillion training and the voices of my old-money-Southern-society family members chiding me about how certain things are "just done" in this family.

If my parents had it their way, the invitations (and the whole wedding in general!) would have been very formal.

According to them, and all the etiquette books, since my parents were paying for the wedding, our invitations should have read:

Mr. and Mrs. My Dads Name III
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter,
Megan Elizabeth
and
Mr. Aaron's Full Name
son of
Mr. and Mrs. Aaron's Dads Name
on Friday, the tenth of October
two thousand and eight

…and so on and so forth in way too many words.

The thing is… did we somehow turn into British royalty when we became engaged? We don't talk like that! Isn't this invitation supposed to be for a ceremony that is all about our relationship?

I know, for a fact, that our relationship would never "request the honour of your presence" or "cordially invite you," no matter how much we wanted you there. Our relationship would never refer to ourselves by our full names — our relationship rarely ever even uses our first names! And our relationship would certainly never spell out the year instead of using numbers. In fact, our relationship is the kind of relationship that rolls it's eyes when it sees dates and times spelled out completely in words!

When I first started planning the invites, I found myself actually stressing over the wording of the invitation. I even found myself Googling "the proper way to word a wedding invitation." And then, when I started the first draft, I caught myself actually spelling out "two thousand and…" — wait a minute! What am I doing?

So I changed tactics and wouldn't you know it… I stumbled upon a blog post called "Wedding invitation wording that won't make you barf." Yes! That's exactly what I was looking for! I clicked over to Offbeat Bride and everything changed. That's when I came to terms with the fact that there's no reason why your invitation can't be as personable and as easy-going as your relationship. It's okay to have an informal wedding invitation. In fact, sometimes informal invitations can seem more, well, inviting!

When Aaron saw the last sentence he started shaking his head and said, "You're such a nerd." I stopped dead, "Oh no, do you not like it?" I had totally thought it was something he would appreciate. But then he started laughing and said, "No, it's perfect!" And then we high-fived.

And that, my friends, is why you will never be "cordially invited" to anything we do. But we WILL totally ask you to show up to our rockin' party.

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Megan Finley Horowitz

When Megan's not writing, traveling, and sleeping, she's eating like the fate of the world depends on it. (You're welcome, world!) You can snoop into her personal life over on her website The Dash and Dine!

Totally agree. My favorite line: "And I know, for a fact, that our relationship would never 'request the honour of your presence' or 'cordially invite you,' no matter how much we wanted you there."
We have been thinking for a long time on how to do wording, and this helps validate what we've been thinking: an invitation from us should SOUND like and invitation from US!

one of my biggest pet peeves is when people write out "two thousand and eight", because when dealing with numbers the word "and" represents a decimal point. i like the way you worded your invitations much better.

Not in Australia – 2024 is written as two thousand and twenty four. An "and" is placed before the tens. If you want to denote a decimal place, you say "point" and then list the numerals, so 2024.56 is written as two thousand and twenty four point five six

Well, your mom can help in ways that have nothing to do with money, right? I mean, wrangling bridemaids, or going with you to food tastings, or stamping and addressing invites, or even just listening and supporting you when you're having a freakout, that's SUPER helpful!

If your dad and step-mom are still married, what about something like:

"Please join
Lilac LastName
Daughter of Mom LastName
and Stepmom and Dad LastName
and
HTB* LastName
Son of Mom LastName
and Dad LastName
As they begin the rest of their lives together…"

blah blah blah (*HTB is Husband-To-Be).

I've read that if the parents are divorced, the names should be listed on separate lines.

Hopefully something like this will help alleviate hurt feelings – although honestly, if someone is determined to have hurt feelings, there's not a lot you can do about it!

Heck we used "and family" and our invitations were only of the only pseudo-formal things we had. It was a great way to include mention of our families, and still avoid the awkwardness of certain people who should be listed according to the traditional way who were not being invited.

even though my parents paid for the majority of our wedding, i didn't want to exclude anyone, so our invites read "together with their families, me and him invite you to join in the celebration of their marriage".
that way, everyone was included 🙂

Agreed about the gauge of formality thing – informal invites could induce that your guests to rock up in t.shirts which might make them feel a little wierd when they realise that the bridal party are attired in rustling silks, corsetry and top hats! The level of formality/style of the invite lets your guests make an educated decision about what they want to wear etc. I'd feel embarrassed if I wore jeans to a ball, although personally I think evening gowns at bbq's are hot.

One thing that's worth bearing in mind is that some people apparently use the invite to gauge the formality of the wedding. Super formal invites might also lead everyone to believe they need to turn up in super formal clothes, which is great if that's the look you're going for, less good for your chilled out back yard BBQ wedding.

Personally I hate the traditional wording anyway, it reminds me of period drama and why I get frustated with all the characters because they're so busy "requesting the honour of your presence" or "wondering if I might beg a moment of your time" when it would be a lot less trouble for everyone if they just got to the point.

Luckily (very luckily) our parents agreed that the traditional wording didn't work for us and we went for a fairly direct approach:
"You are warmly invited to attend the wedding of Me and Him on Date at Time in Place and afterwards the reception in Other Place" with nothing implied about who is hosting the event or planning it or whatever else you're 'supposed to' imply.

We took a similar approach with names on invites. I was not going to wrestle with titles and correct forms of address for 150 people so they were all addressed to "Jane + John Smith" or "Jane, John + James Smith" for those with kids.

Oh yes! My mother just about had a heart attack when she realized I addressed the invitations to just "Jane & John Smith" (sometimes just "Jane & John" if I couldn't remember what last names they were using) instead of Mr & Mrs or Dr & Mrs, etc.

But really… it came down to a.) I don't care about the formalities and b.) I didn't want to bother finding out who was Mrs or Ms or who got their doctorate or which uncle was the 3rd or Jr., etc. Who has the time!? I just want to invite them to come party with me!

Fair enough! I should say, I care about people's names. But I don't call my uncle Mr John Blah Jr. I call him Uncle John — so that is how I addressed it. And if I'm not going to address my best friend's invitation to Mrs Blah, I'm not going to call her husband Dr. Blah — I call them Amy and Joe Blah. The familiarity is what I was going for.

But similarly some people feel very strongly about never being addressed by their full name. I feel that it would be just as wrong to address a friends invite 'Mrs Rebecca Lastname' when I know she hates being called that and would prefer 'Becci Lastname'.

It's something that will vary between guests but I think if you know someone well enough to invite them to your wedding you will also know them well enough to be aware of how they prefer to be addressed.

In my case I don't know anyone I would normally call 'Mr & Mrs Lastname' (and I don't know any doctors or juniors at all, far as I know), even my bosses boss introduced himself as 'Dave'. It also fit with the formality of the wedding as a whole in a way more formal names wouldn't.

My friends would totally understand if we did the formal thing, as they did, but we won't be. It will be silly, a little sweet, and fun. My mother agreed that my parents' names will be left off, despite the fact that they are paying, for particular reasons. I wish my friends were getting married now so I could see the totally awesome weddings and invites they would come up with after having grown into themselves. And I am thankful that I don't feel the need to cordially invite anyone.

When I first designed my invites they had pretty standard wording and at the time I was happy with them. After that I put them away for a few months and didn't look at them until I went to print them out.

When I looked at them with fresh eyes, I discovered that what had seemed perfectly normal before now looked snobby and boring. I decided to tweak the invites and ended up completely redesigning them that night.

As I was trying to decide how to lay out the text I quickly typed in
"In case you hadn't heard, Nina and Rod are getting married!
Together with our parents we invite you to share in our celebration of commitment and love." intending to delete it later and replace it with proper wording.
After showing this to Rod and trying to think of what else we could write, we ended up deciding that my spur of the moment words were more 'us' than anything we were going to find on the internet so it ended up going on the final invites.

As another space filler I jokingly put the vows from 'The Corpse Bride' on one of the invite inserts.

"With this hand
I will lift up your sorrows
Your cup will never be empty
For I will be your wine
With this candle
I will light your way in darkness
With this ring
I ask you to be mine."

Then I loved it so much that it too ended up on the final cut of the invite.

The experience taught me that no matter how much thought and careful planning you put into anything, sometimes it's those little impromptu moments that really mean something.

(on the front flap of the pocketfold, on a 2×2 card we used to seal the flaps) "EZ & KC never liked the ending of Romeo & Juliet"

(on the inside)
"Kacey Lyn Me
&
Eric Him
invite you to join them as they
rewrite the story and
show how star-crossed lovers
can triumph in the end
Thursday, the twenty-seventh of January
two thousand eleven
at six o'clock in the evening
Hotel Name
Town, State

Dinner, Drinks, Dancing & Assorted Shenanigans To Follow"

The whole star-crossed lovers bit was due to some of the unique aspects of our rather long courtship.

To be honest, I LOVED our invitations. And the earlier commenter was right about people taking their cue from the formality/informality of the wording. I had more than one guest mention that the invitation gave them the sense that it was still a dress-up, fancy party…but that it was going to be just a little bit unique. Which is exactly what it was. 🙂

we also didn't want any awkwardness with who was paying for what etc etc..( my parents pitched in, but his aren't..and his mother would consider my parents name on the invite an insult.. and well my parents don't care for all the formalities either.. so it was a win win)

Simple, to the point, slightly romantic( with quote) and very us! Not to mention, we didn't want to waste a bunch of paper, so we left the website to do all the informing for us! 😀

I was just going over this stuff with my mom last night and she asked who was going to do the envelopes, and before she could get another word out I just said, "They are NOT going to be written in calligraphy." There's no point. My wedding is not going to be a calligraphy wedding.

My dad is pretty formal, but I was SO relieved when we were going over the invitation wording and my dear mother proclaimed, "I am not Mrs. Dad Lastname – I am Tammy!" I love my mom. From there, I took my Martha Stewart-esque outline and took a down a few notches. Hurrah! Since my parents are paying for a large chunk of the wedding, I still wanted to honor them as the hosts, so we ended up somewhere in between with:
Dad & Tammy Lastname
Request the Pleasure of your Company
at the Marriage of their Daughter
Roxy Middlename
to
Groom Middlename
October Fifteenth
Two Thousand Eleven
At Six in the Evening
The Swanky Spot we're getting hitched
Seattle, WA
Dinner, Drinks & Dancing
To Follow

We're both changing our last names to something fun and new, so no last names for us! Yippee!

Unfortunately, we cannot leave off our last names, since I'm a Jen, and I have dated at least 4 guys over 20 years with the same first name as the groom — no one would know which Jen, or which [groom's name] we were talking about! LOL.

So we'll leave in our last names, to avoid worldwide confusion, but we'll keep the dates written as "Saturday, June XX, 20XX".

My biggest confusion on invites, is the web-savvy vs. non-web-savvy guests, and the fact that we are hosting a weekend-long event. I'd like to get everyone online to see the full schedule/lodging info/directions, etc., but many won't go there. We also need to get RSVPs for the rehearsal dinner, wedding day (ceremony/reception), and Sunday brunch, but w/o sending too much printed material. I feel like the response card is going to look like a survey full of check boxes!

My mom's a graphic designer and has run into this a few times in the last few years. So many people have wedsites, but not all of their guests feel comfortable using them. She's started to have a separate line on the RSVP card that asks if they're ok with checking the website or if they'd like to send a print out of the info needed. That way the couples don't have to send as much with the invite itself, and they can also gauge if the aunt or grandma or whatever can be helped over the phone before sending a ton of extra papers.

So the invite just includes the regular invite and the RSVP card which has a yes/no line and a "I'll look at http://www.wedsite.com"/"I need some hardcopies (help)" line.

I'm a Jenn marrying a Bob so last names are important. However mine is from a previous marriage. I never changed it because of kids. Haven't decided how to handle that. But we are also doing a website as we have a weekend long event planned and a lot of out of town guests. And our very southern family's are going crazy about it. To the point I'm like don't check the website for information and don't show up. They are ALL tech savoy enough to check Facebook ALL the time but getting info from a website isn't "proper". It's ridiculous!

I'm a Jenn marrying a Bob so last names are important. However mine is from a previous marriage. I never changed it because of kids. Haven't decided how to handle that. But we are also doing a website as we have a weekend long event planned and a lot of out-of-town guests. And our very southern family's are going crazy about it. To the point I'm like don't check the website for information and don't show up. They are ALL tech savoy enough to check Facebook ALL the time but getting info from a website isn't "proper". It's ridiculous!

I'm… not really in agreement with this post (though, of course, YMMV).

No one in our family "paid" for the wedding, so that wasn't part of the equasion. And my mother would rather die than be called "Mrs. Dadsfirstname Lastname".

But there are some very, very good reasons to list our parents names and use semi-formal wording on PRINTED invitations, regardless of the informality/offbeatness/individuality/unique snowflake-ness of the actual event: In my humble opinion, it shows respect to your family (to whom this wedding will be more significant than you may realize), and your guests.

The invitation is a really good way to let people know that
a) this is a significant lifetime event,
b) you are adults who know the seriousness of what you're doing,
c) those are your parents' names (they'll want to congratulate them at the event, after all), and,
d) yes, they should take this invitation seriously and RSVP on time, goddammit.

NB: Aside from the omission of honourifics, this is Miss Manners-approved wording for a PRINTED, GENERAL invitation to a secular ceremony. Sayeth Miss Manners: If you want to write out invitations BY HAND (in your actual handwriting, with a pen), addressing each recipient BY NAME, the wording can be as informal as you'd like.

Just anecdotally, I'm currently in med school and can't imagine being hurt someday that someone forgot I was "Dr" instead of "Ms" or "Mrs" unless I had some pretty good evidence that they were doing it to slight me. Although, if you're not close to the person (or worse yet, don't get along with them), then you'd probably need to be extra careful.

Though, personally, I was enlightened and appalled to discover that "Mr. & Mrs." isn't just the way it's done for no reason. "Mrs" is actually a lower-ranking title than "Mr." If the wife is a doctor and the husband is not, the "proper" order is "Dr. and Mr."

Gag. This is why I will be addressing all invitations in alphabetical order by first name from now on.

I'm having a really hard time deciding what to do about titles for this very reason. Ethically, I have a problem with the traditional "Mr. and Mrs." ordering of everything. I have several fellow grad student females that did not change their names when they got married. Do I still refer to them as Mrs.? Why should I put their husband's name before theirs if the wife is the one that I actually know? It is all pretty confusing, and very culturally loaded. I'm considering just using first and last names, and putting the name of the person that I know better first each time. I'm not sure if this will offend people though.

Thanks for this perspective, I've been wondering about this angle of things because I would like to avoid sexist language or the question of who's paying for what on our invitations, but I also am not into the informality of the "We're getting hitched!" wedding invitations I've seen suggested as an alternative. I like to think that we can be formal without being bigots, since etiquette is as much about making people feel comfortable and welcome (good) as it is about entrenching gender and class divisions (bad). Your point about guests wanting to know the names of the parents for when they show up to the event is helpful and something I hadn't considered.

I want to have minimal text on our invitations, so I think I will leave the parents' names off but will make sure to include them in a program at the event. Initially I didn't want to have a program because I want our brief ceremony to feel participatory rather than theatrical or performative, however I do think it would be useful to give guests a little cheat sheet of immediate family members' names. Recently I attended a wedding where I kept getting paranoid that I'd misremembered the groom's name, so a convenient reminder on a program would have been useful!

Since our parents are helping us pay, I thought it would be nice to include them on the invite. No, Mr. or Mrs. though, just first names made it a lot more informal. Also, we've been together for 6 years, and I didn't want the word "wedding" on it. This is what we did:

Because you knew this day was going to happen.
Please join
Lucia Fabio & Robert Andrew Mueller
along with their parents
Leo & Giovanna Fabio
and
Frances Mueller
as they continue to share their lives together.

While I agree that the wording of an invitation shouldn't be restricted to by-the-book methods, I have to say, I'm really disappointed by those bashing other people who chose to use formal wording.

I lifted my invitation wording straight off the box they came in. It's pretty dry and formal, but I really couldn't care less. Why? Because with all the shit I have to do for my wedding, all the time-consuming projects and piddly details I have to worry about, invitation wording ranks pretty damn low on my list. But that makes me a wanna-be-British-royal-with-a-spoon-in-my-ass? Talk about disrespectful. That's just a rude as telling someone they're being tacky for using casual wording.

Can we have a discussion about alternative and off-beat invitations WITHOUT stooping to insults?

Megan's premise is that your invitations should match the tone of your wedding, and that the formal language would have been inauthentic with her wedding. She said the language didn't reflect how she and her partner talk to each other, and that therefore she didn't feel right with it.

If that formal language feels right for your wedding, then right on! You had an easy time of addressing your invitations. Awesome!

As with all posts on Offbeat Bride, someone voicing why they chose NOT to follow a tradition is not an insult against those who chose otherwise. We cater to folks all across the offbeat spectrum. We're all planning different weddings, here. What works for one person, won't work for another. And that includes Megan's sense of humor.

Also, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that people don't stoop to insulting those who choose to do something traditional. That's exactly what it is, a choice, and like I said, it's no better than someone telling us we're tacky because of our offbeat choices.

We're going away to get married, just the two of us, and having a small, casual BBQ party when we get back. I've been looking for something between the stick-up-your-ass formality of "the honour of your presence is requested" and what we really want to say "come rock out with your cock out", which may be a little too much for his mother and assorted older relatives.

My parents both go by their middle names, and used super formal wording on their wedding invites… as a result, their guest-list was slashed because so many people didn't RSVP to the wedding where they thought they knew neither the bride or the groom!

This was one of the many reasons I was happy I chose a solid theme. Made the wording easy and FUN. We're having a Mad Hatter Tea Party theme, and our invitation said, "Candyce and Lane gleefully request the delight of your company as they take the plunge down the rabbit hole and join together in the Wonderland of marriage.

My husband and I really didn't want to go down the formal route of having the parents inviting people they didn't even know so we ended up writing 'Maeve and dan, together with their parents..'and then named the three parents. I think everyone was satisfied in the end.

If you'd like to see the invite I've just made a post about it on the weblink below and how we did our seating plan (inspired by a Harlequin book bouquet I saw on Offbeat bride!)

This probably isn't the lesson I'm supposed to be getting from this post, but I actually LOVE the postcard invite picture. I'm a postcard addict, so it makes perfect sense to scrawl something like that on a postcard (maybe with details enclosed or on the front, even). Yeah, it's casual, but it's also heartfelt and meaningful.

Dude, that is TOTALLY the lesson! In fact, if you pull that off you will be hero. I've had a joke with my best friend for YEARS about how that was exactly how I was going to send invitations. But then my parents did have a say on the matter and all, so that became our save-the-dates instead. But yeah, DO IT! 😉

The "two thousand and eleven" thing made me think of an invitation I got once. For the time, they wrote out "three-thirty o' clock". Uh, there's no such thing. Either they were trying too hard to be fancy or someone was really careless with copying and pasting. Either way, I got a laugh from it.

My husband and I eloped privately but are throwing a destination wedding celebration with small ceremony for close friends and family 1 yr later. It was hard to find the correct casual wording for this type of "wedding" but I finally had a brainstorm idea and here's what I came up with.

Since the deed was already done, we'd like to host a party for everyone to join in on the fun!
Bride and Groom invite you to celebrate their commitment to each other and toast to the years to come.

Our RSVP is fun and casual as well (the wedding is in Hawaii)

RSVP:
Ready to celebrate, please let us know by this date: xx/xx/xxxx
Name(s) _________________________________________________
___ ALOHA! My bags are packed and I'm working on my base tan!
____ number of guests
___ Have a mai tai for me. I/We regretfully can't make it.

Nice work! My invites started with "Donna and Mark are getting married!" and then the details followed. I never could see the point of being all formal and "proper", when that's totally not what my fiancee and I are like!

We found some good middle room. Instead of "Reception to follow" or "Reception & Dinner to Follow" (mom was paranoid people wouldn't think an evening reception would include food), we put "Dinner & Dancing to Follow." Still somewhat formal, but more playful, a little vintage-y to go with the aesthetic, and made sure people knew there would be DANCING! 🙂

Like this post, I too am working on our invites today and cannot figure out wording that seems like "us". We are so not formal people and are having a backyard country wedding bbq. My parents are paying but his divorced parents will both be offended if they are not included. Having some trouble…

This post is perfect because I didn't think it would be ok if I put the shortened version of my name (my full name is Jennifer but most people call me Jenny). And I like the simple wording of the invite. We put the parents names mainly because we have such big families we wanted to make sure the people knew whose kids we are :).

Well we are getting married at a desertion wedding a taken a cruise in Oct.2013 Not sure how to write out my invites as this is both our 2nd marriage and we would like people to go if they wish. Help so one! We plan on a small reception when we get back. and would also like to add that but not sure on a date yet. : /

My parents are not contributing anything to the wedding (hell, my mother may not even come) and while we are paying for most of it, the wedding really wouldn't be possible without the generous help of his step-father and, well, honestly, I would like to show my appreciation when and where I can and the invite seems like the kind of way he would like. Any ideas on how to craft *that* wording?

I wanted my invatations to be more of a concert poster. We've have dated for about 9 years so I put in "You are invited to the most anticipated event of the decade. The wedding of (me) & (him) One night only! (address & time) then I talked about "for directions & hotel info go to (website)"

I wish my friends were getting married now so I could see the totally awesome weddings and invites they would come up with after having grown into themselves. And I am thankful that I don't feel the need to cordially invite anyone.

My guests already know me and that I can be a bit fiesty and usually enter a room with an exuberant "What up, bitches!" While the wedding is going to be a bit more classy than my usual, it has to still be undeniably me. I want to let people know what to expect at our wedding so they come with the right mindset, shoes, amount of grub in their bellies etc to have the best time. I don't want people to be confused wondering when dinner is (because there isn't one) and wishing they had known that ahead of time. The front of the invite has the time and place. The back has this little ditty:

A simple ceremony,
short and sweet.
Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres
to drink and eat.
Then plenty of dancing
so get on your feet.
Please say you'll come
or you're gonna get beat!

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